Indian-American doctors charged with fraud

In New Jersey, an Indian-American couple was arrested on charges of healthcare fraud and later released on a US $100,000 bond.

51 year-old Nita K Patel and 51 year-old Kirtish N Patel who own and run Biosound Medical Services and Heart Solutions of Parsippany, have been charged with one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud. They could face a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a US $250,000 fine.

Yesterday, they were arrested from their New Jersey residence, but were later released on a US $100,000 unsecured bond, with travel restricted to New Jersey unless can obtain approval from pretrial services. They have also been asked to hand over their passports to the authorities.

The prosecutors allege that over the past two years about half of diagnostic reports generated by Biosound had a photocopied signature from a reading physician, while the physician hadn’t seen, reviewed or interpreted the results.

The prosecutors further alleged that Kirtish in order to avoid paying physician used to interpret the diagnostic results himself, while Nita would either photocopy or electronically cut and paste a physician’s signature onto a diagnostic report that had been drafted by an employee of Biosound. The report was then forwarded to the referring physician who had ordered the testing.